for the military. Songs poured out of the open windows the summer Mother moved in.
I always get goose bumps thinking of my five-year-old mom living among the George Gershwins and Irving Berlins of the socialist order. They were the people whose buoyant, jubilant marches I still sing in the shower. Along with generations of Russians, I’ve got them under my skin—which of course was the plan. “Mass song” was a vital tool in molding the new Soviet consciousness. Song set the romantic-heroic tone of the era. Song fused individual with
kollektiv
, comrade with State. It carried the spirit of sunny, victorious optimism into every choking communal apartment, glorifying labor, entrenching ideology—all in catchy tunes you couldn’t stop humming.
Mom didn’t actually share the collective zest for mass song. But there was no escaping the iron grip of Ninka, her new best chum in the building. Daughter of a Jewish symphonist and an Armenian pianist, brash and imperious Ninka had raven-black eyebrows and fingertips callused from violin lessons. She appointed herself Mom’s musical instructor.
“We’re eternally warmed … by the sun-ny Stalinist glor-y!
C’mon, haven’t you memorized the words yet?” she’d demand.
“Reason gave us steel wings for arms,”
she’d continue, trying another popular tune, wincing at Mom’s off-key attempts to keep up.
“And a fiery motor instead of a heart.”
“People had mechanical parts in their bodies?” asked Mom.
“The song celebrates Stalin’s Falcons!”
“What are Stalin’s Falcons?”
“Our Soviet Aviators—clueless dimwit!”
In good weather Ninka conducted her tutorials on the building fire escape. “Ooh … the brothers Pokrass!” she’d swoon, pointing at two men passing below, one lanky, the other plump and short, both with big frizzy hair that sat like hats on their heads. Didn’t Mom know their song “The Three Tankmen”? From the film
Tractor Drivers
? Mom couldn’t admit to Ninka she hadn’t yet seen real
kino
. With perfect pitch (she did truly have a golden ear), Ninka chanted another
“very
important” Pokrass work.
“Bustling! Mighty! Invincible! My
country.
My
Moscow. You
are my true beloved!”
In my own childhood this was the song Mom always turned off when it played on the radio. The radio played it a lot.
Ninka’s musical bullying was tiresome. But at least now Mom could sing along at the parades Naum zealously attended whenever he returned to Moscow from his mysterious, vaguely explained absences. The parades … well, they were deafening, overwhelming. And what of all those small kids perched on their dads’ shoulders, shouting, “Look,
papochka
, what a scary mustache!” when they saw Comrade Stalin? Eyes stark with fear, papa would clap a big, unclean hand over his kid’s mouth. Naum never had to muzzle Larisa or Yulia. He was dashing and funny, his squarish nails were immaculate, and he had a privileged view of the Leadership’s podium from his special Red Square parade bench. “Comrade—are you Stalin’s Falcon?” Mom would ask in a small, polite voice whenever an aviator she’d recognize from newspaper photos shook Naum’s hand.
And so it went. May Day. Constitution Day. Revolution Day. Thunderous welcomes for aviators and polar explorers. Citizens marched; their children sucked sticky ruby-red Kremlin Star lollipops. Meanwhile, just outside the city, on one busy day alone in 1938, 562 “enemies of the people” were shot and dumped in trenches by the NKVD, thesecret police, at its Butovo firing range. There were many thousands more. The German historian Karl Schlögel sums up the atmosphere of the times in his description of Red Square. “Everything converges: a ticker-tape parade and a plebiscite on killing, the atmosphere of a folk festival and the thirst for revenge, a rollicking carnival and orgies of hate. Red Square … at once fairground and gallows.”
I was born in Moscow. The seventies
I always get goose bumps thinking of my five-year-old mom living among the George Gershwins and Irving Berlins of the socialist order. They were the people whose buoyant, jubilant marches I still sing in the shower. Along with generations of Russians, I’ve got them under my skin—which of course was the plan. “Mass song” was a vital tool in molding the new Soviet consciousness. Song set the romantic-heroic tone of the era. Song fused individual with
kollektiv
, comrade with State. It carried the spirit of sunny, victorious optimism into every choking communal apartment, glorifying labor, entrenching ideology—all in catchy tunes you couldn’t stop humming.
Mom didn’t actually share the collective zest for mass song. But there was no escaping the iron grip of Ninka, her new best chum in the building. Daughter of a Jewish symphonist and an Armenian pianist, brash and imperious Ninka had raven-black eyebrows and fingertips callused from violin lessons. She appointed herself Mom’s musical instructor.
“We’re eternally warmed … by the sun-ny Stalinist glor-y!
C’mon, haven’t you memorized the words yet?” she’d demand.
“Reason gave us steel wings for arms,”
she’d continue, trying another popular tune, wincing at Mom’s off-key attempts to keep up.
“And a fiery motor instead of a heart.”
“People had mechanical parts in their bodies?” asked Mom.
“The song celebrates Stalin’s Falcons!”
“What are Stalin’s Falcons?”
“Our Soviet Aviators—clueless dimwit!”
In good weather Ninka conducted her tutorials on the building fire escape. “Ooh … the brothers Pokrass!” she’d swoon, pointing at two men passing below, one lanky, the other plump and short, both with big frizzy hair that sat like hats on their heads. Didn’t Mom know their song “The Three Tankmen”? From the film
Tractor Drivers
? Mom couldn’t admit to Ninka she hadn’t yet seen real
kino
. With perfect pitch (she did truly have a golden ear), Ninka chanted another
“very
important” Pokrass work.
“Bustling! Mighty! Invincible! My
country.
My
Moscow. You
are my true beloved!”
In my own childhood this was the song Mom always turned off when it played on the radio. The radio played it a lot.
Ninka’s musical bullying was tiresome. But at least now Mom could sing along at the parades Naum zealously attended whenever he returned to Moscow from his mysterious, vaguely explained absences. The parades … well, they were deafening, overwhelming. And what of all those small kids perched on their dads’ shoulders, shouting, “Look,
papochka
, what a scary mustache!” when they saw Comrade Stalin? Eyes stark with fear, papa would clap a big, unclean hand over his kid’s mouth. Naum never had to muzzle Larisa or Yulia. He was dashing and funny, his squarish nails were immaculate, and he had a privileged view of the Leadership’s podium from his special Red Square parade bench. “Comrade—are you Stalin’s Falcon?” Mom would ask in a small, polite voice whenever an aviator she’d recognize from newspaper photos shook Naum’s hand.
And so it went. May Day. Constitution Day. Revolution Day. Thunderous welcomes for aviators and polar explorers. Citizens marched; their children sucked sticky ruby-red Kremlin Star lollipops. Meanwhile, just outside the city, on one busy day alone in 1938, 562 “enemies of the people” were shot and dumped in trenches by the NKVD, thesecret police, at its Butovo firing range. There were many thousands more. The German historian Karl Schlögel sums up the atmosphere of the times in his description of Red Square. “Everything converges: a ticker-tape parade and a plebiscite on killing, the atmosphere of a folk festival and the thirst for revenge, a rollicking carnival and orgies of hate. Red Square … at once fairground and gallows.”
I was born in Moscow. The seventies
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